§ty The Scented Qarden ^ 



on the tree.' He mentions also a yellow Banksian rose 

 growing at Goodrent, Reading, the seat of Sir Jasper 

 Nicholls, Bart. It produced one year * about 2000 

 trusses of flowers and there were from six to nine ex- 

 panded roses on each truss.' 



The double flowered white and pink multiflora or 

 polyantha roses were introduced as cultivated plants 

 from Chinese gardens more than a hundred years ago, 

 and were the parents of many of our popular rambling and 

 climbing roses. The Lyons rose growers crossed the seed 

 with various double roses, and produced a large number 

 of new varieties, some tall-growing and some dwarf, the 

 latter being the now widely popular polyantha roses. 

 Of the tall-growing varieties one of the most popular 

 was the Seven Sisters rose, which is still occasionally to be 

 seen in old gardens. Loudon, in his Arboretum (1838), 

 describes a plant of the Seven Sisters rose which he saw 

 at the Goldworth Nursery in 1826. ' It covered about 

 100 square feet and had more than 100 corymbs of bloom, 

 with about 30 to 50 flower buds in each corymb, so that 

 the amount of flower buds was about 3000. The variety 

 of colour produced by the buds at first opening was not 

 less astonishing than their number. White, light blush, 

 deeper blush, light red, darker red, scarlet and purple 

 flowers, all appeared in the same corymb, and the pro- 

 duction of these seven colours at once is said to be the 

 reason why this plant is called the Seven Sisters rose.' 

 R. multiflora with single flowers is a native of Japan, and 

 was introduced in 1875. The origin of the Crimson 

 Rambler, which has been grown in China for centuries, 

 is doubtful. According to the late Mr. E. H. Wilson it 

 may be a hybrid with China Monthly parentage, a sport 



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